SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Four years after a coup d’etat threw Honduras into crisis, church workers said human rights abuses continue unabated, fueled by disputes over mining concessions.

A new Honduran mining law passed in January has opened up huge swaths of the countryside to mining exploration. But the mining industry has increasingly become the source of grave human rights abuses as mostly poor, rural citizens who live on the land have been threatened, said church and human rights workers.